The Hundings (

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

: ''Hundingas'', the "hound-clan") are a legendary tribe or

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, mea ...

in early Germanic sources, mostly mentioned due to their feud with the

Wulfing The Wulfings, Wylfings or YlfingsWord initial ''w'' was lost before rounded vowels in Proto-Norse, e.g. ''wulf'' corresponds to ''ulf'', and ''Wulfing''/''Wylfing'' corresponds to ''Ylfing'', because the ''i'' in the second syllable causes an umla ...

s (the "wolf-clan").

History

In the

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...

, Hunding is a king of the

Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

, slain by

Helgi Hundingsbane Helgi Hundingsbane is a hero in Norse sagas. Helgi appears in '' Volsunga saga'' and in two lays in the ''Poetic Edda'' named '' Helgakviða Hundingsbana I'' and '' Helgakviða Hundingsbana II''. The ''Poetic Edda'' relates that Helgi and his mist ...

. The ''

Gesta Danorum ''Gesta Danorum'' ("Deeds of the Danes") is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th-century author Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Literate", literally "the Grammarian"). It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark an ...

'' mentions a Danish king Helgo who slew Hundingus, king of Saxony, in single combat. The historical core of the story is likely a conflict between the Eastern

Geats The Geats ( ; ang, gēatas ; non, gautar ; sv, götar ), sometimes called ''Goths'', were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the late Middle Ages. They are one of t ...

(the wolf-clan) and the

Lombards The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 an ...

(the hound-clan). ''Hunding'' itself is a

patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...

translating to "son of a hound", while the Hundings as a clan ('' sibb'') would be the descendants of Hunding. Being named a "hound" or "dog" was by no means an insult in pre-Christian Germanic culture, but that the animal was rather a symbol of the warrior, while in Christian Germanic culture, it became associated with heathendom, "heathen hounds" being an appellation especially of the pagan

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

(cf.

Ulfhednar In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...

). The name of Lamicho, king of the Lombards, may mean "little barker" (Harris 2004). In Paulus' ''

Historia Langobardorum The ''History of the Lombards'' or the ''History of the Langobards'' ( la, Historia Langobardorum) is the chief work by Paul the Deacon, written in the late 8th century. This incomplete history in six books was written after 787 and at any rate ...

'', the Lombards terrorize their neighbors by spreading the word that they had dog-headed warriors, possibly a reference to

ulfhednar In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...

. In Paulus's account, Lamicho is one of seven sons of a "prostitute" (''meretrix''), who is fostered by king Agelmund. This "prostitute" has been explained by Rudolf Much (followed by Höfler and others) as going back to a word for

bitch Bitch may refer to: * A female dog or other canine * Bitch (slang), a vulgar slur for a human female Bitch or bitches may also refer to: Arts and media Film and television * ''The Bitch'' (film), a 1979 film starring Joan Collins * ''Bitch ...

. The Lombards' original ethnic name, ''Winnili'', has also been connected with "savage dogs" by Much. In Eddaic account of a feud between the Hundings and the Wulfings surrounding

may correspond to the Lombard story, and Malone (1926) explains the whole story of Lamicho as the Hunding version of the same feud. Jacob Grimm (1848) compared the story of Lamicho to the German legends of the origins of the

Welfen The House of Welf (also Guelf or Guelph) is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meus ...

, in German legend tracing their ancestry to fostered babes who were given the surname of "whelps" (Harris 2004). Hundings also appear in Sturlaugs saga starfsama, where they are a tribe of

Cynocephali The characteristic of cynocephaly, or cynocephalus (), having the head of a canid, typically that of a dog or jackal, is a widely attested mythical phenomenon existing in many different forms and contexts. The literal meaning of "cynocephaly" is ...

dwelling in Hundingjaland, which is apparently in much the same latitudes as

Bjarmaland Bjarmaland (also spelt ''Bjarmland'' and ''Bjarmia''; Latin: ''Biarmia''; Old English: ''Beormaland,'' Komi: Биармия ''Biarmia,'' Old Permic: 𐍑𐍙‎𐍐𐍒‎𐍜𐍙‎𐍐) was a territory mentioned in Norse sagas since the Vikin ...

. These Hundings may relate to those

mentioned by

Adam of Bremen Adam of Bremen ( la, Adamus Bremensis; german: Adam von Bremen) (before 1050 – 12 October 1081/1085) was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. Adam is most famous for his chronicle ''Gest ...

. The ''Hundingas'' in

Old English literature Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work '' Cædmo ...

are mentioned in

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. ...

, and in

Widsith "Widsith" ( ang, Wīdsīþ, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the '' Exeter Book'', a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th ...

. The Widsith poem mentions the Hundings twice, once in a list of Germanic clans, as ruled by ''Mearchalf'', and a second time among outlandish tribes and peoples, in the sequence ''mid hæðnum ond mid hæleþum ond mid hundingum'' "with heathens, heroes and dog-people", implying a re-interpretation of the name as a remote people of "heathen hounds". This re-interpretation is complete in a later Anglo-Saxon manuscript on the ''Marvels of the East'', where the

are glossed as ''healf hundingas''.Tiberius, f. 80r: ''Eac swylce þær beoþ cende healf hundingas þa syndon hatene conopoenas. hy habbaþ horses mana & eoferes tuxas & hunda heafdu & heora oruþ byþ swylce fyreslig. þas land beoþ neah þæm burgum þe beoþ eallum world welum gefylled þis on þa suþ healfe aegiptna landes.” ("And similarly there is a race of half-dogs that are called conopoenas. They have a horse’s mane and a boar’s tusks and a dog’s head and their breath is like fire. This land is near the city which is filled with all the costly things of the world. This is in the south half of Egypt’s lands.") Asa Simon Mittman, ''Headless men and hungry monsters'', The Sarum Seminar, Stanford University Alumni Center (200

References

{{reflist * Joseph Harris, ''Myth and Literary History: Two Germanic Examples'', Oral Tradition 19.1 (2004) 3-1

* Otto Höfler. "Cangrande von Verona und das Hundsymbol der Langobarden". in: Brauch und Sinnbild: Eugen Fehrle zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Schülern und Freunden. ed. by Ferdinand Herrmann and Wolfgang Treutlein. Karlsruhe: Kommissionsverlag (1940) pp. 101–37.
Rudolf Much, "Der Germanische Osten in der Heldensage." Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 57 (1920), 145-176.
(archive.org) * Rudolf Much, "Widsith. Beitrage zu einem Commentar." Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 62 (1925), 113-50. * J. Insley, 'Hundingas', Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, RGA XV, 240-1 Germanic mythology Lombard families Characters in Beowulf Mythological dogs

History

See also

References